Tag: Ethnic Cleansing

East Jerusalem: the indignity and illegality of eviction

Mary Robinson | The Elders

2 September 2009

As our visit to the Middle East was ending, one of the most poignant encounters we had was with Maher Hanoun and his family in East Jerusalem. For several nights three generations of Hanouns have been sleeping in the street – the women and children in cars and the men encamped on the pavement. They were evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem on 2 August 2009 following an Israeli court ruling.

We brought the family food and drink for Iftar, a special time for Muslims during the month of Ramadan as it is the evening meal at which their daily fast is broken. The moment was rendered even more moving as we heard of the difficulties that the Hanouns have experienced since their eviction.

The family are refugees who have lived in their home in Sheik Jarrah since 1948. Now they have not only been evicted, but have watched Jewish families being shown the property and encouraged to move into a home that for generations they called their own.

These houses are situated in occupied East Jerusalem. The Palestinian families that lived in these buildings did so legally, and their presence is supported by international law. This is encapsulated in UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 478 which call upon Israel not to transfer members of its civilian population into occupied Arab territories or to change the character and status of Jerusalem.

To its discredit, the Israeli legal system – to which Palestinians have limited and unequal access – has been used by some settler groups to claim ownership of property purportedly belonging to Jews prior to 1948. The decisions taken by the Israeli courts have sustained the claims of settlers and offer Palestinians no recourse to reclaim their rights to lost land or property.

My fellow Elder Jimmy Carter was unambiguous in his statement that the eviction of Palestinians such as the Hanouns from East Jerusalem “is a political issue… It’s an attempt by Israel to take over East Jerusalem, which is part of Palestine”. I wholeheartedly agree, and was encouraged to know that several Israeli human rights groups and advocates also agree.

Such enforced evictions are utterly unacceptable; it is no exaggeration to state that this kind of action could be a serious obstacle to a successful negotiation of a two-state solution. The Hanoun family do not have fair and equal access to the Israeli legal system – nor are they the only ones to have been treated this way. The international community and all those in Israel and Palestine who believe in the importance of the rule of law should support their cause and speak out against this infringement of Palestinians’ fundamental human rights.

Evicted Palestinians camp by home taken by settlers

Jihan Abdalla | The Washington Post

25 August 2009

Fresh dates and chicken soup were served up at dusk on the sidewalk in the well-heeled suburb of Sheik Jarrah this week, as the evicted Palestinian al-Ghawi family spent another night camped outside their former home.

Their stone house in Arab east Jerusalem, in a district of consulates and trendy restaurants, is now home to Jewish settlers, who moved in as they were being kicked out on Aug 2.

The furniture and belongings of the seven-member family were tossed on the street. Their neighbor offered shelter.

But the al-Ghawis refuse to give up and go away. On the third day of Ramadan, when the world’s one billion Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, they gathered with a group of supporters for the traditional evening meal.

Eaten exactly at dusk to break a day of fasting, iftar — Arabic for breakfast — is usually a home-cooked meal eaten inside the home.

The al-Ghawis had takeout, on the sidewalk.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war, a move never recognized internationally. Some 200,000 Jews now live here, alongside about 250,000 Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asserting a biblical claim to Jerusalem, has said Jews have a right to live anywhere in the city. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to create in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The evicted families are descendants of refugees who came to the area in 1956, according to the Israeli organization Ir Amim, which monitors — and opposes — Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

19TH CENTURY

In legal proceedings stretching back to the 1980s, Palestinians have disputed the Jewish claim in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which has become a focal point of Jewish settler development plans in East Jerusalem.

Israeli police who turned the family out of their home said they were acting on eviction orders issued by an Israeli court, which had upheld a settler organization’s land ownership claim based on 19th-century documents.

Settlers have moved into six other buildings. Armed men guard the stone houses where settlers have hoisted Israeli flags.

Along with Israel’s demolition of what it deems illegal Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, evictions here have become a further irritant in Israel’s relations with Washington, already strained by the dispute over Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied West Bank.

Among supporters of the evicted family on Monday evening was Rafiq al-Husseini, chief of staff of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We are here to make sure that they don’t have iftar on their own, that we are in full support and solidarity with them,” he told Reuters in a makeshift protest tent outside the house.

Fifteen minutes before the minaret’s call to eat, Nasser al-Ghawi set the table with packaged food, plastic silverware, and bottled water — a donation from a nearby restaurant.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, was also present for the symbolic iftar meal and celebration.

“We would like to tell the world that we are here, yes, on the street, but we are in front of it. And we cling to our right to these homes, and we don’t accept an alternative. Eventually, justice must and will come,” he said.

Maysoon al-Ghawi, mother of five, said losing her home has changed her outlook on the future.

“Our dreams and our plans for the future have all been canceled,” she said, cradling two-year-old Sarah.

Ramadan, she said, is supposed to be a stable time for the family to spend time together, the time to buy the children promised toys, and new clothes. Instead, she must go to her neighbor’s home to bathe them and wash their clothes.

“I feel incompetent and incapable of doing anything for my children, because I have nothing left,” she said.

With summer nearly over, and school about to begin, Maysoon said she had still not bought her children’s schoolbooks.

“Where would I put them? On the street?”

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Charles Dick)

Plans for largest East Jerusalem settlement filed for approval

Nir Hasson | Ha’aretz

22 August 2009

A plan for the building of a new settlement, Ma’aleh David, in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem was filed for approval by the relevant municipal committee at the Jerusalem Municipality. The plan calls for the construction of 104 housing units on the land where the former headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police was housed in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.

The new settlement is planned to be connected to an existing Jewish neighborhood, Ma’aleh Zeitim, and together will be occupied by some 200 families, forming the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

The plan is being promoted by the right-wing group Elad.

The land on which the new housing is planned was, until 18 months ago, the compound of the Judea and Samaria police headquarters, which has since moved to a new building in Area E-1. Once the police evacuated the area it returned to the control of the Committee of the Bokharan Community, which has held ownership over the property and the structures there since before 1948.

Last week the Committee filed the plans with the local municipal committee for approval.

According to the plan, the former police structure will be razed and replaced by seven structures ranging between four and five stories in height, and incorporating 104 housing units.

The plan involves high-end housing and the complex will include a swimming pool, mini “country club,” community library and parking spaces. A synagogue, kindergartens and a mikveh (Jewish ritual purification bath) are also planned for construction there.

A foot bridge will connect the new settlement with existing ones on the other side of the road. The settlement of Ma’aleh Zeitim across the street currently houses 51 families and in its second phase of development, which is currently being completed, another 66 housing units are being built.

When the two neighborhoods are completed and linked, a Jewish settlement of more than 1,000 people will be situated in the heart of Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood comprised of 14,000 Palestinians.

Officially, the building plans and the request for approval were filed by the Committee of the Bokharan Community, but sources at the Jerusalem Municipality believe settler organizations are behind the project.

The same sources said the plans, as they currently stand, will likely be changed and less units will be built. However, in the long run it will be difficult to prevent the project with the existing statutory measures, since there is no dispute over the ownership of the land, or whether the area is designated for residential construction projects.

Yudith Oppenheimer, the executive director of Ir Amim, a non-governmental group that monitors Jewish settlement activity in East Jerusalem, told Haaretz: “A two-state solution requires provisions for Palestinian building in East Jerusalem. The goal of this plan is to establish facts on the ground on a scale that would thwart such a solution. Advancement of this plan will stoke the flames in Jerusalem and is liable to lead to a Hebronization of the city.”

Left, right-wing camps demonstrate on J’lem building issue

Ronen Medzini | YNet News

17 August 2009

Dozens of right- and left-wing activists gathered outside the Shepherd Hotel, site of a disputed planned Jewish housing project in east Jerusalem, to demonstrate in favor of their two sides of the issue. The planned building on the site evoked angry responses last month from the American administration.

The left-wing protestors gathered under the auspices of the Peace Now movement. The right-wing protestors were joined by rightist Knesset members. The two camps hurled insults at one another. Each side called the other “provocateurs.”

The right-wing activists held signs calling Obama “racist” and accusing Peace Now of encouraging terrorism. The left-wing activists slammed the rightist camp as “fascists.”

The protestors gathered as US Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee arrived at the hotel for dinner with Knesset members, including Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), Uri Ariel (National Union), Michael Ben Ari (National Union), and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu).

MK Arie, whol took part in the right-wing protest outside the hotel, said, “No one will stop this tune. We build and will continue to build in Jerusalem. Whoever wants can protest, but Jerusalem is united. All in all, some 300,000 Jews live today in the east of the city. The Americans don’t want to recognize Gilo, the Western Wall, or the Temple Mount either. They can express their opinion, but ultimately this is our capital city.”

MK Michael Ben Ari added, “Jerusalem is Jewish for all eternity. Our message is unequivocal – Zionism continues to be on the up rise. We praise Huckabee for joining support of our return to Jerusalem. Peace Now members can curse as much as they want, but it won’t work. Zionism will grow and will influence all of the Land of Israel.”

From the leftist camp, Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer said, “We came to say loud and clear that settlement in east Jerusalem is not Obama’s or Europe’s problem, but is the Israeli public’s problem. We must be outraged at the attempt to make Jerusalem indivisible and unsolvable. We came to protest against this and the settlers’ provocations. The hotel is only one step along the way towards their larger plan of commandeering other neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Our demonstration is against the overall policy.”

Members from the center of the political map also showed up to protest. MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) said, “Jerusalem is not left and is not right. It belongs to generations past and the generations to come. What I and Kadima represent is a bid to extend our hand to both sides. A controversy can’t be formed over building in Jerusalem in these places. This is the opinion of Kadima. Such is also written in our platform – Jerusalem is unified. The Israeli public and the Americans need to know that there will be no controversy surrounding Jerusalem.”

Huckabee said earlier Monday that the Obama administration was too harsh with Israel on the settlement issue. During a tour of east Jerusalem, he said, “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want.”

Quiet slicing of the West Bank makes abstract prayers for peace obscene

Slavoj Zizek | The Guardian

18 August 2009

On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses. Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families had been living there for more than 50 years. The event – which, rather exceptionally, did attract the attention of the world media – is part of a much larger and mostly ignored ongoing process.

Five months earlier, on 1 March, it had been reported that the Israeli government had drafted plans to build more than 70,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank; if implemented, the plans could increase the number of settlers in the Palestinian territories by about 300,000 Such a move would not only severely undermine the chances of a viable Palestinian state, but also hamper the everyday life of Palestinians.

A government spokesman dismissed the report, arguing that the plans were of limited relevance – the construction of homes in the settlements required the approval of the defence minister and the prime minister. However, 15,000 have already been fully approved, and 20,000 of the proposed housing units lie in settlements that Israel cannot expect to retain in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

The conclusion is obvious: while paying lip-service to the two-state solution, Israel is busy creating a situation on the ground that will render such a solution impossible. The dream underlying Israel’s plans is encapsulated by a wall that separates a settler’s town from the Palestinian town on a nearby West Bank hill. The Israeli side of the wall is painted with the image of the countryside beyond the wall – but without the Palestinian town, depicting just nature, grass and trees. Is this not ethnic cleansing at its purest, imagining the outside beyond the wall as empty, virginal and waiting to be settled?

On the very day that reports of the government’s 70,000-home plan emerged, Hillary Clinton criticised the rocket fire from Gaza as “cynical”, claiming: “There is no doubt that any nation, including Israel, cannot stand idly by while its territory and people are subjected to rocket attacks.” But should the Palestinians stand idly while the West Bank land is taken from them day by day?

When peace-loving Israeli liberals present their conflict with Palestinians in neutral, symmetrical terms – admitting that there are extremists on both sides who reject peace – one should ask a simple question: what goes on in the Middle East when nothing is happening there at the direct politico-military level (ie, when there are no tensions, attacks or negotiations)? What goes on is the slow work of taking the land from the Palestinians on the West Bank: the gradual strangling of the Palestinian economy, the parcelling up of their land, the building of new settlements, the pressure on Palestinian farmers to make them abandon their land (which goes from crop-burning and religious desecration to targeted killings) – all this supported by a Kafkaesque network of legal regulations.

Saree Makdisi, in Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, describes how, although the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is ultimately enforced by the armed forces, it is an “occupation by bureaucracy”: it works primarily through application forms, title deeds, residency papers and other permits. It is this micro-management of the daily life that does the job of securing slow but steady Israeli expansion: one has to ask for a permit in order to leave with one’s family, to farm one’s own land, to dig a well, or to go to work, to school, or to hospital. One by one, Palestinians born in Jerusalem are thus stripped of the right to live there, prevented from earning a living, denied housing permits, etc.

Palestinians often use the problematic cliché of the Gaza strip as “the greatest concentration camp in the world”. However, in the past year, this designation has come dangerously close to truth. This is the fundamental reality that makes all abstract “prayers for peace” obscene and hypocritical. The state of Israel is clearly engaged in a slow, invisible process, ignored by the media; one day, the world will awake and discover that there is no more Palestinian West Bank, that the land is Palestinian-frei, and that we must accept the fact. The map of the Palestinian West Bank already looks like a fragmented archipelago.

In the last months of 2008, when the attacks of illegal West Bank settlers on Palestinian farmers became a regular daily occurrence, the state of Israel tried to contain these excesses (the supreme court ordered the evacuation of some settlements) but, as many observers have noted, such measures are half-hearted, countered by the long-term politics of Israel, which violates the international treaties it has signed. The response of the illegal settlers to the Israeli authorities is “We are doing the same thing as you, just more openly, so what right do you have to condemn us?” And the state’s reply is basically “Bde patient, and don’t rush too much. We are doing what you want, just in a more moderate and acceptable way.”

The same story has been repeated since 1949: Israel accepts the peace conditions proposed by the international community, counting on the fact that the peace plan will not work. The illegal settlers sometimes sound like Brunhilde from the last act of Wagner’s Walküre – reproaching Wotan and saying that, by counteracting his explicit order and protecting Siegmund, she was only realising Wotan’s own true desire, which he was forced to renounce under external pressure. In the same way the settlers know they are realising their own state’s true desire.

While condemning the violent excesses of “illegal” settlements, the state of Israel promotes new “legal” building on the West Bank, and continues to strangle the Palestinian economy. A look at the changing map of East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians are gradually encircled and their living area sliced, tells it all. The condemnation of anti-Palestinian violence not carried out by the state blurs the true problem of state violence; the condemnation of illegal settlements blurs the illegality of the legal ones.

Therein resides the two-facedness of the much-praised non-biased “honesty” of the Israeli supreme court: by occasionally passing judgment in favour of the dispossessed Palestinians, proclaiming their eviction illegal, it guarantees the legality of the remaining majority of cases.

Taking all this into account in no way implies sympathy for inexcusable terrorist acts. On the contrary, it provides the only ground from which one can condemn the terrorist attacks without hypocrisy.

Slavoj Zizek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities szizek@yahoo.com